Regarding the Future of the Bullion Section

As usual, I'm late to the dinner table. Option A is the best course (coarse?) in my opinion.......

 

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Without reading any of the other comments, I voted for getting tougher on the political posts. There are still some of the members collecting, hoarding or amassing (take your pick) bullion who still have other numismatic interests, and removing this forum from CT might make them feel alienated.

At the same time, keeping this forum within CT, but setting it up with its own special set of rules might make it difficult for those who want to navigate back and forth through the forums. It would be very easy to forget that you were in one forum with one set of rules when moving on to another forum with an entirely different set of rules.

I would opt to err on the side of caution so as not to disenfranchise any of the members. With that said, if cracking down means that the moderators find themselves spending much of their time enforcing rules and less time participating in the forums, then I would consider making the bullion forum "hidden" where the administrators can decide whether to allow someone access or not.

Chris

 

I agree with travis, we do need to have a bit thicker skin, but there are some personalities who if they perceive that they are being dismissed or insulted will answer in kind, and when two such personalities come to odds, they tend to escalate, tho I am sure both feel that they are answering in moderation and merely responding to provocation.

It reminds me of the old joke, a man marries his bride and is taking her home, on the road the horse strays off the path and into some brambles, the man gets off looks the horse in the eye and says that's one.

They go a little further down the road, the horse sees a snake in the path and rears up almost throwing the man and his bride. The man stops, gets off, looks the horse in the eye and says, "thats two"

They are almost home and the horse deliberatley goes under a low branch almost knocking the man and his bride from the saddle, the man gets down, looks the horse in the eye, says "thats three" pulls a pistol and shoots the horse dead.

The Bride is horrified, "how terrible, you shot the poor horse, how could you be so cruel, I do not know what made you do such an awful thing"

The man stops, looks squarely at his bride and says "Thats one"

 

I personally have never posted on the bullion forum,(I don't feel I have enough market savvy to advise anyone in this area, and would probably do others more harm than good:gooferbut I do read it quite often. I feel like it is an important part of numismatics, and would hate to see it get moved to another forum all together. I think a cross between A and B. make people opt in and maybe crack down a bit on the pushing and shoving. Posting more rules would probably have little effect. Enforcing the existing rules seems to work pretty well. The mods do a great job as far as I can tell.
There are at quite a few regular posters on the bullion forum who seem to give intelligent well informed advice, and I would hate to see them leave because of a couple extremists.
I do think politics have an influence on the market, but like cloudsweeper said not as much as people would like to think or hope.
Just my 1 1/2 cents.

 

I would agree with A.

The reasons I came to this site are numerous, but the main one was I did not see the threads degenerating into political arguments, which invariably ends up with a name calling, philosophy challenging, then personal attacks and finally a totally worthless thread.

It is not nearly as bad as many other boards I frequent, sports, bullion and coins, and so far I've not really taken offense to any of the posts on here. I will also state that I thought the "return to gold standard" could have been decent, until some went off on a ridiculous tangent and that's how it starts. There is really no reason to bring politics into bullion investing and I will not get into it, because it is fallicy.

I do like to come here and see what others are thinking, and sometimes doing. That part of this section is informative and solid, and most of the posters that post here on a regular basis have some vry good ideas and information.

I know one thing for sure. I've found better resources since being on here and posting than what I had by being on other bullion and coin forums. For that I'm grateful, and the exchange of ideas is something I'll never tire of.

 

I agree that that forum could have been a good one. It all went wrong with one person and led 3-4 others down a slippery slope of politics and economics. If the administrator would have caught it earlier, the thread would still be up and running. The title itself was calling for trouble though. It is nice to hear ideas or find new things from the forums.

 

B- the PRWE forum is focused on politics and religion mainly. Bullion investing may tie into some politics which spins off from economics. Instead of shutting a thread down, just simply ban the first offender from the thread, not from Cointalk entirely. But keeping it somewhat seperate may allow for a little more relaxed rules. Just an idea, not saying anyone should agree. Thanks everyone!!!

 

"A" if you want to talk politics, go somewhere else.

 

I enjoy CT and love to hear from everyone and different points of views. To me I try to treat it like real life, I process what I like to hear and the rest just gets scrolled by. I have'nt been rubbed the wrong way by anyone and usually if I get a smart remark it was because I was asking for one lol. I say as long as nobody gets vulgar or offensive life is good.

 

Back in the "olden days" of the 1990s when AOL was the primary access to the internet for many folks, they policed their chat rooms by banning members who made offensive posts for a period of 24 hours from any sort of AOL access. That seemed to work fairly well.

 

Am I old if I remember those days?

 

You can't discuss the price of bullion without at the same time mentioning the Federal Reserve's monetary policy having an impact on it. Printing money has an impact. Same goes for the CFTC and the Comex with the fact that fractional reserve gold and silver are being traded on a 100 to 1 paper to physical basis. Many people may not have heard about the CFTC hearings this past March.

Peter, I think if it is an open forum as long as there is no slamming of people on the board or slamming of politicians (meaning personal attacks not policy discussions) I think it is good. There is a lot of information that people don't know about and is key to understanding bullion. I would think most of us are over 18 and for the most part can police ourselves.

I mean I would hate to not be able to discuss the fact that FDR devalued gold by 75% thusly devaluing paper dollars by the same amount during the Depression. Especially to set up something that I was discussing that is more current.

 

Well, if that is the case it might be easier to ban the offender for a day. But it has to be something obvious. Maybe you could state the reason for the banning? IE excessive swearing, personal attacks, etc.

 

Ok I understand that. I was just thinking that there has to be a couple of rules then.

 

I don't like being muzzled just because I answered a question and was met with ignorant rants by someone just trying to show off how out of touch with reality he is.

Go ahead and ban me. I don't fit in with Bullys.

 

Hidden
I am a member on another forum where the 'political' part (and threads) do not even show up on the 'new posts' search function. You can scroll down in the listing of topics and find it, or bookmark it for easier access. It really is political and ya have to have very thick skin to post there.
Not seeing the political threads in the new posts search is nice.
When I want to go there, it is really easy.